Mantua

Viewed traditionally, the history of sixteenth-century Mantuan music is almost a catalogue of some of the most distinguished composers of the age, from Tromboncino and Cara, via Jacquet of Mantua, to Wert, Palestrina, Marenzio, Pallavicino, Gastoldi, Rossi and Monteverdi. The remarkable achievements of composers under Gonzaga patronage, practically synonymous with Mantuan patronage during this period, are treated here in their social context. The arguments proceed not just from the music itself, but from detailed examination of archival sources, from which Dr Fenlon reconstructs employment patterns and describes the social structure and institutional life of the city. The aim of the book is to show how the patterns of patronage, and music and musicians, reflect and illuminate the temperaments and prime preoccupations of successive rulers. The book contains a substantial appendix of unpublished archival documents, a small proportion only of the scholarly and comparative sources on which the study is based.

Case studies of private art collections recorded during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in Mantua. This work seeks to show how the collectors' taste changed during this period and how these changes are reflected in the collections' display, and also seeks to contribute to the understanding of the original context of works of art in sixteenth and early seventeenth century private houses in a courtly city.

"Although most of Mantua's artistic treasures were sold or claimed as war spoils upon the decline of the Gonzaga family, the rich cultural legacy of this fascinating city lives on in the city's many surviving frescoes and in the collections of some of the world's premier museums These priceless works of art are reunited in the pages of this beautifully illustrated volume."--BOOK JACKET.

Mantua, Virginia, sprouted outside Washington, DC, after World War II because of its convenient location between the Little River Turnpike and US Route 50, roads that made commuting into the nation's capital easy. But Mantua's roots go back to a 1685 Northern Neck of Virginia land grant. Gristmills operated along the Accotink Creek, which still defines the terrain. Civil War major John Henry Chichester's family named Mantua, which stretched south to Glenbrook Road farms, under three miles from the Fairfax Court House, where the first Confederate soldier was killed. The area gradually changed from farms where grain grew and livestock grazed to a wooded suburb with Mid-Century Modern houses. Federal workers and military personnel put down roots, establishing a community. An underground oil spill in 1990 united residents determined to overcome unwanted national attention and continue a small-town America lifestyle in the shadow of the nation's capital.

Analyzing the artistic patronage of famous and lesser known women of Renaissance Mantua, and introducing new patronage paradigms that existed among those women, this study sheds new light the social, cultural and religious impact of the cult of female mystics of that city in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Author Sally Hickson combines primary archival research, contextual analysis of the climate of female mysticism, and a re-examination of a number of visual objects (particularly altarpieces devoted to local beatae, saints and female founders of religious orders) to delineate ties between women both outside and inside the convent walls. The study contests the accepted perception of Isabella d'Este as a purely secular patron, exposing her role as a religious patron as well. Hickson introduces the figure of Margherita Cantelma and documents concerning the building and decoration of her monastery on the part of Isabella d'Este; and draws attention to the cultural and political activities of nuns of the Gonzaga family, particularly Isabella's daughter Livia Gonzaga who became a powerful agent in Mantuan civic life. Women, Art and Architectural Patronage in Renaissance Mantua provides insight into a complex and fluid world of sacred patronage, devotional practices and religious roles of secular women as well as nuns in Renaissance Mantua.

Judah ben Joseph Moscato (c.1533–1590) was one of the most distinguished rabbis, authors, and preachers of the Italian-Jewish Renaissance. This volume is a record of the proceedings of an international conference organized in Mantua and consists of contributions on Moscato and his intellectual world.